TVR - The image the company sent to future owners who have made deposits is a lightly photoshopped sketch that Britain's Autocar magazine published in March of this year.

TVR, the boutique British automaker run aground in 2006 after purchase by a Russian oligarch, is back with plenty of deposits on an undisclosed coupe and a teaser image photoshopped from an Autocar magazine sketch. The fledgeling car company is at work on a new coupe powered by a Cosworth V8 with an expected output of 450 to 500 hp, though it won't be until 2018 that customers will be able to take delivery of the cars. The factory has to be built first, even though the first year's allocation is already sold out.

TVR Chairman Les Edgar gave the future owners of the new coupe a progress report, stating that the company is running at least one engineering mule that has been operating on roads, and that they've recently fired up one of the Cosworth V8s.

"Clearly there is a lot of work still to do but we’re really pleased with the progress particularly as some of the development work on this unit has flowed back into the road car design, resulting in an expectation of an additional increase in power for the LE car," Edgar writes. "The dyno simulated a lap of Le Mans and has the ability to simulate the effect of topography and gear change, and while the unit was not running with either our race or road transmission set up, and the correct aero for the car could not be correctly simulated (‘cos we haven’t finished it yet ;0) - the results were very respectable, nonetheless. And we broke the dyno! However, our focus is very much on the road car at the moment and importantly, I am pleased to report that the power and torque figures and delivery characteristics are very much on target."

However, the company has yet to announce a location of the factory, though that is expected in 2016 along with the updated specs for the upcoming coupe.

"There are a number of important considerations for TVR when deciding where the new home should be," Edgar notes. "It wasn't a decision to be taken lightly - we didn’t want the location chosen simply because we could build a large shed with grant money. We wanted it to be a statement of our future intent, a place our customers would want to visit, and most of all somewhere all of us associated with TVR - the whole community - can rightly be proud to call TVR's home. We are very close to achieving that milestone in our plan - to make TVR the coolest, hardest-performing hand-built British sports car once more."

The update sent to those who have placed deposits included the sketch you see above, though many (including Autocar) were quick to note that it's a lightly photoshopped image of a new TVR that Autocar magazine published months ago, albeit with a silver metallic paint finish and some other details. The image itself is a placeholder, we can assume, one that TVR will address in 2016 as more details about the car emerge.

Edgar indicates that 2016 will see not only further details about the design and the packaging of the car, but also the specific power, torque, and top speed figures, in addition to a pricing structure for the coupe and options.